I was digging around in an old box and found this book at the bottom. It's one of those off-brand Fighting Fantasy-style gamebooks from the 80s. I remember it being pretty fun and almost no one I know has played it so I thought it'd be worth scanning for posterity. While I'm doing that we can play through it, since goons usually make good choices about things.

The book isn't in great condition but it should still be playable. By the looks it spent most of the 90s as a coaster.

I'm not going to bore you with this. The introduction and loot tables go on for about fifty pages, which is unreasonably long since this game isn't all that complicated. It basically uses the same system as the Fighting Fantasy books but with Elan, Effort and Fists instead of Skill, Stamina and Luck. Actually now I think about it there are a few differences but I'll tell you about those when we come to them. Skipping all that for now:

An Adventure Sheet. In this game most items you can't directly use go in the Junk pile, anything you can equip (boosting Elan, Effort, giving a special effect) goes in Equipment. Trophies are just this game's name for monsters, when you fight them you're meant to fill in the details in that section. I'll keep this updated as we go.

In this game we're going to play the titular Bastard Elf, actually a half-elf who's been kicked out of home. At the end of each section we're usually presented with a choice or a test of one of our stats (and sometimes a fight). Since this is an LP I'd like whoever's reading this thread to make the choices. We'll go with whichever is most popular or interesting. I've played this before so I'll try to avoid steering us into dead ends, although by the standards of early 80s gamebooks this one is pretty good about not killing you off because you went right instead of left two choices in. Anyway let's get started. Since character generation is randomised there's no room for choice, so I'll just do it:

For Elan I rolled 2. Halving that I get 1 and add 6, giving us the great Elan score of 7. Our Elf is not off to a great start, although there are items that give boosts to this stat.
For Effort I rolled 9, giving us an Effort score of 90. Not bad, and it should offset the low Elan a bit.
Of course we have 2 Fists. And no wounds yet (more on that later if it comes to it):

Now let's read on and get to the first choice of the book:

Hmm, looks like the damage is worse than expected. No matter, this gamebook was known for being pretty exhaustive when it comes to choices (there's a reason it's the size of a phone book). If you can think of it it's probably in here.

So dear goons, I need two decisions from you for now:

1. What three items do we take with us? (The book makes reference to a list but a lot of that has been chewed too, but if you can think of it it'll probably be in the list.)

2. What's our first move?

I'll scan as fast as I can to keep things moving but there may be a day or so of downtime between updates.

Saint Isaias Boner fucked around with this message at Jul 30, 2015 around 22:59

At the moment it looks like Sword (Bastard), 10ft Dungeoneering Pole and Pet are winning, with Screaming Incoherently and Fleeing into the Woods Until Bleeding being the starting point for this adventure. The Tasty Burg (including difficult-to-open sauce, salt and pepper sachets) or perhaps a Bow (with Arrows) are still strong contenders for pack space. Will check again in a couple of hours before I update.

The only limit is yourself. Unfortunately we're playing a lovely half-elf so the limit's pretty low.

Based on my counting the three items we've got are the Bastard Sword, Ten-Foot Dungeoneering Pole and the Tasty Burg (with individual condiment sachets). All good, solid choices. A little about them from the item table which I'll scan in and add to the OP later on.

The Bastard Sword of the Elf (not to be confused with the Sword of the Bastard Elf) is an Elven bastard sword, which is a bizarre hand-and-a-half rapier and it's really only suited for poking holes in things. Like every other piece of Elvish crap it's stupidly over-embellished with leafy decorations and questionably tasteful gemstones. Effects : +1 Elan in combat.

The Ten-Foot Dungeoneering Pole is a very tall archaeologist by the name of Karol Jan Myśliwiec. He's been your loyal companion for years even if you don't share many interests or speak much Polish. No general effect although he might come in handy in some situations. He's glad to have been invited along.

The Tasty Burg can be eaten at any time to restore 20 Effort or heal 1 injury.All the Individual Sachets of Condiments can be used at the same time to boost the effect to 30 Effort or 2 injuries, or they can be kept aside to use later on for some other purpose.

Found the missing bit of the page we were on:

so, letting our emotions get the better of us we come to 180:

Right, so combat rules. Unlike most of these games fighting is a choice. You can choose not to fight and take the consequences - in this case a wound (we were healthy before the forest, then injured coming in, so we will be seriously injured). However, we will not waste any Effort.

If we do choose to fight, you decide how much Effort you want to put into winning, up to a maximum of your Elan score. You then roll as many D6s as you have Fists, and pick the highest dice score. Add that to the Effort number you picked. If it exceeds the enemy's Effort score, you win and you knock one point of its toughness. Knock all points off its toughness to win. However, win or lose, the Effort you spent is deducted from your total, and at zero Effort it's game over. You can give up on winning a fight at any time so long as you can survive the consequences (it doesn't take you below the skull level of health) but all Effort spent during the fight is lost.

Since in this case we will not die no matter what we choose to do in the fight, I need to know two more things from you :

1) Fight the bat for the belt or take the beating we probably deserve?

and

2) What's the next step in this epic quest?

Current character sheet:

Saint Isaias Boner fucked around with this message at Jun 24, 2015 around 21:28